Enrique Marquez, longtime friend of San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook, has been indicted for conspiring with Farook in 2011 and 2012 to commit crimes of terrorism. Marquez was indicted Thursday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Riverside before US Magistrate Sheri Pym who scheduled a bail and detention hearing for him on Monday in Riverside. (Mona Edwards/ for The Sun)

But a response by the defense attorneys for Enrique Marquez Jr. filed Wednesday afternoon in Riverside federal court indicated that was not going to happen — and it didn’t.

“Mr. Marquez is not playing games” they said, repeating their request for his sentencing date to be moved from April 30 to July 30.

Their reply claims the government produced large volumes of new material to review in November 2017 and retained a terrorism expert, meaning the defense had to get one as well.

The expert, defense attorneys said, had to review 3,503 pages of transcripts and several hundred pages of FBI interview forms. And the November material included Marquez’s Facebook page, with 13,369 pages of data; bank records; and evidence photos that included Marquez’s call logs from his cell phone.

The filing also said prosecutor’s 177-page sentencing document filed on Monday included attachments that violated a protective order meant to keep some items in the case sealed.

The items were not further described in the defense response, but among the attachments are transcripts of electronic message chats between Marquez and other unidentified people. Other pages in the government sentencing document indicates material was submitted under seal.

The additional three months are needed to give the court information to impose “a sufficient but not greater than necessary sentence,” the defense reply said.

In opposing the defense attorneys’ request for a 3-month delay prosecutors noted that defense sentencing papers were also due Monday when the government filed theirs. But instead the defense filed its motion to move the sentencing date.

Defense attorneys said in the Wednesday afternoon filing they were willing to make a new schedule for briefings. Separately, they also told U.S. District Jesus G. Bernal that they were adding a new attorney to their now three-lawyer team, all of them deputy federal public defenders.

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department released this photo Dec. 3, 2015 of the weapons carried by terrorist Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik. (Courtesy photos)

“Unfortunately, a reasonable interpretation of defendant’s actions and the timing of his … request is that they amount to gamesmanship,” the government said in its opposition to rescheduling the sentencing. It noted that the request “conspicuously omits” the agreed-up briefing schedule that would have both sides filing their sentencing briefs by April 9.

“The timing of the defendant’s latest request and his failure to file a sentencing brief raises concerns that defendant is seeking an improper litigation advantage” by seeing the government’s papers while withholding his own, federal attorneys said.

The defense responded Wednesday afternoon that it needs additional time to respond to the large sentencing brief filed Monday by the government, saying it could not do the job in two weeks time.

“The victims and their loved ones are affected,” the government also argued. Many plan to attend the sentencing, delayed three times already, and some plan to address the court during the hearing. Each time a date is set, they must make arrangements to go to court, the file said.

The government agreed to one Marquez sentencing delay, but has opposed the subsequent ones. In their Tuesday filing, the government asked Bernal to deny the request and order Marquez to file his papers by 5 p.m. Wednesday, or hold a hearing on the latest defense delay request.

There was nothing additional on the court docket Wednesday afternoon beyond the defense reply.

A journalist since 1975 for City News Service in Los Angeles, The Associated Press in Los Angeles and New York, and The Press-Enterprise, Richard K. De Atley has been Entertainment Editor and a features writer. He has also reported on trials and breaking news. He is currently a business reporter for The P-E. De Atley is a Cal State Long Beach graduate, a lifelong Southern Californian (except for that time in New York -- which was great!) and has been in Riverside since 1992.